Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Ice, ice, baby...

You know that character that
exists in the realm of any movie merely to make you laugh from time to
time. They have minimal sub-plots, the
entirety of the film itself never hinges on their existence because, well, they
aren’t main characters, and if the screenwriters decided last minute to take
them out of the film entirely we still wouldn’t lose to important aspects of
the film. In other words, they don’t
matter, but we’re so happy they’re around.
Think those Minion creatures from ‘Despicable Me’ or the Penguins from ‘Madagascar’
or that funny looking prehistoric squirrel from ‘Ice Age’. These are troublemaking little beasts who have
found a place in our hearts, but they make no difference to the overall
progression of the films they embody.
Sure, their absence would deaden the enjoyment, but the film could get
on without them.

I mention all of this because so
often we find ourselves celebrating these little creatures, loving them and
even championing them for their own films.
GIVE THEM THEIR OWN MOVIE! THEY’RE
HILARIOUS! But what we never take into
consideration is that, for the most part, these creatures are supporting
players for a reason; they have no real depth and can’t carry an entire plot,
and so when some of these characters have been given their moments to shine,
whether with their very own movie or with a short lived television series, it
fizzled.

We hated it.

So, that brings me to ‘Penguins
of Madagascar’. Yes, I loved those
sarcastic, trouble making loads of adorableness and they were, by a pretty
large margin, my favorite thing about those ‘Madagascar’ movies, but those
movies had grown tiresome and so the idea of them attaining their own film kind
of scared me. I really didn’t want this
to be awful, and I was afraid that, while sprinkled bits of their dry sarcasm gave
their movies bite, a hole hour and a half of it was going to grate my nerves.

I said this the minute I walked
out of the theater, and I still stand by it; ‘Penguins of Madagascar’ is the
funniest movie not starring Rose Byrne that I saw in all of 2014. For real.
It may not be the smartest, the most clever, the most memorable (The
LEGO Movie, as a whole, has that edge), but for pure laughs, ‘Penguins of
Madagascar’ is boss.

I never stopped laughing.

The film opens with a rather
hilarious ‘three men and a baby’ moment and then quickly moves us into a fast
paced story revolving around our favorite little penguins, Skipper, Kowalski,
Rico and their adopted brother Private.
There are internal tensions with regards to poor Private wanting to be appreciated
as more than just their cute cuddly ‘baby’, but the real story centers on a
crazy octopus seeking revenge on the penguins to stole all the attention away
from him when they were brought to his zoo.
So, this octopus is obviously a crazy mad genius who comes up with a way
to turn all penguins into hideous monsters so that the general public will hate
them. The penguins find (unwanted) help
by a group called The North Wind, a Special Forces unit of polar animals lead
by a stubborn Wolf. At the end of the
day though, it is Private who needs to prove his worth, once and for all.

The bottom line is that this is
really what a family cartoon is all about.
It’s hilarious, with every joke landing in all the right ways. The animation is sharp, the voice acting is
great and the crisp dialog is spot on.
My kids laughed and I laughed, from start to finish.

Winner!

An A! A glorious A! It's such a shame that this won't stand a chance at netting an Oscar nomination, especially when it was so much better than that mediocre 'Dragon' sequel!

I love those penguins. I still can laugh when i think about the moment they got to Antarctica. I glad you give this a thumbs up as it seems to have a little edge whereas the Dragon one seems lame. I love dragons but hate it when they make it all schmaltzy.

About Me

What is there to say? I love movies, books, music...whatever and I love talking about it. I love predicting Oscars and publishing my own personal awards (Fistis!) and I love hearing what you have to say about what I have to post. It's come a long way from it's very humble (and slightly embarrassing) beginnings and has turned into a blog that I'm very proud to be the founder of.